Not-so-vital statistics

Forget your troubles, come on getHAPI! Because, you know, in an era where you can watch movies on your phone and read a magazine on your computer, why would you want to trouble yourself keeping track of your own physical activity?

The just-launched HAPItrack is an activity tracker that motivates users to be more active, while measuring their success at staying in shape. Crammed into the pocket of your jeans or clipped to a patented HAPItrack belt clasp, this gizmo collects and saves information, such as how many steps you’ve taken today, how far you’ve walked, the duration of your morning workout, and how many calories all this movement has burned.

It’s a great innovation, really – a tiny machine that handles all the boring calculations concerning your exercise regimen. However, should you HAPItrack too fast, this presumably “happy” gadget will vibrate to remind you to slow down. This takes it all a step further, going all “Hal from 2001” on you by sending you personalized motivational speeches to keep you on the straight and narrow. Who wouldn’t be more inclined to “keep up the good work” after receiving a text message from the little plastic thing that’s snapped onto their belt?

HAPItrack is the brainchild of HAPIlabs, the same folks who last year brought you the super-goofy HAPIfork, an eating utensil that counts how many bites of food you take during a meal, and how quickly. The fitness-tracker includes a mobile app that gives you access to a web site that logs your daily steps, sleep and meals, and then generates coaching and advice based on that data. Critics are calling HAPItrack a rip-off of the Fitbit Tracker, a wireless-enabled, wearable device that was launched last year and offers similar personal-metrics information to its users. But the HAPI version of Fitbit offers an otherworldly option: It measures sleep quality by determining how long it takes the wearer to fall asleep, how often they wake up over the course of the night, and how long they are actually asleep.

All of this is well and good, but how long before someone invents a machine that will just do the exercising for us? That’s the widget we want to see.